Hocus Pocus
by The Impala
Summary: Waking up with a killer hangover is bad. Waking up on the floor of a strange bathroom is worse. Waking up to find a half naked dude in your bed? That's as bad as it gets. . . Right? NOT SLASH. We swear.
1. Chapter 1: Really Bad Rum

**Disclaimer**: We don't own pretty boys. . .

WARNING: the following contains short chapters, confusing points of view, and lots of random shit. Rated T for mild swearing, sexual references and minor nudity.

Takes place sometime during season two, but there are no specific episode references.

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**Chapter One**: _Really Bad Rum_

Consciousness returned slowly, bringing with it a throbbing pain. With great difficulty he pried his eyes open and blinked in the sudden brightness. Light was streaming in from a nearby window, a clear indication that it was at least mid-morning.

Taking stock of his situation he surveyed the room around him. A bathroom. He was lying on the floor of a bathroom. Okay. . .

Slowly he sat up and did a mental inventory. Other than the sharp pounding in his head he seemed to be intact. It was one killer headache though. Judging by his position on an unfamiliar bathroom floor, he was going to put his money on a hangover.

Funny though, his mouth did not seem to have the thick cottony feeling it usually did when he had been drinking. But a hangover most definitely did explain the unsettling fact that he had no idea where he was.

Deciding that he had spent quite enough time on the cold linoleum, he pulled himself slowly to his feet. He shivered slightly and realized that he was only half dressed. He spotted a shirt in a crumpled heap next to the bathroom door, which stood ajar.

Looking through the partially open door he guessed he was in a motel room. He could just see the head of a single unmade queen bed. He reached down to retrieve his shirt, hoping that he had not brought some girl back here with him last night. It was awkward not being able to remember your partner's name the next morning. Imagine trying to explain he did not even remember the act.

He sighed, not much he could do about it now. It must have been some seriously strong booze that he had been into last night. Holding his shirt in one hand, he pushed open the door, and promptly froze in place.

This was so not happening.

He forced his eyes shut and opened them again, as though trying to make the scene before him disappear. Unfortunately, he had no such luck. Upon opening his eyes he found himself still staring at the same horrifying thing.

"There is not enough alcohol in the world," he muttered aloud to himself.

In front of him on the unmade bed, a person – a mostly naked person – lay sprawled across the sheets in a deep sleep. A pile of clothes lying discarded on the floor near the bed, explained why the person wore nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.

He blinked again. The person stubbornly remained.

"That is so not a dude, that is so not a dude," he murmured desperately, all the while knowing, that despite the nearly shoulder length hair, that so _was _a dude in his bed.

A rather tall dude. In fact, the guy had to be at least six feet, maybe a bit more. His longish hair was a light brown, and seemed to have been wet when the man had fallen asleep – or more likely passed out – if its wild condition was anything to judge by.

What was even more clear was that he did not in any way recognize this man. Not even the slightest hint of familiarity. Those really must have been some strong drinks last night.

He was not sure exactly how long he stood rooted to the floor staring at the man before him, unable to figure out what he should do. All he knew was that it had clearly been too long. The man on the bed stirred with a low groan, and clutched at his head.

It was then he remembered that his own head had been pounding when he had woken up, just a short time ago. Somehow, the pain had ebbed significantly and it was now nothing more than a minor ache. This had to be the strangest hangover in history. Or at the very least the strangest he had ever had.

In fact, he was not even positive he was having it. After all, the scene before him was so ridiculously unreal, it clearly had to be some strange booze-induced nightmare. Right?

Unfortunately, he did not seem to be waking up anytime soon. Whereas the guy in front of him was now looking around, appearing as confused as he, himself, had been upon waking in the strange bathroom.

It was looking more and more likely that they had both been into the same questionable alcohol the previous night. Damn.

The man moaned again, still holding his head, and finally looked towards the bathroom. He froze, having clearly noticed his 'room mate'.

They stared at each other for a long moment, until the man on the bed seemed to realize his current state of undress. "What the—" he yelped as he frantically grabbed the sheet from the bed and pulled it over himself.

His voice did not spark any memory either. It was official , he had no idea who this strange guy was, and absolutely no idea how said strange guy had ended up in his bed.

Now half-draped in a sheet the man looked back up at him, confusion written clearly across his face. Maybe this man did not remember him either? He wondered, but that thought was soon followed by another. How could anyone forget him?

Finally as he decided this had officially moved from weird into creepy and bizarre he finally spoke, "Who the hell are you?" he demanded.

At nearly the same moment, the other man, still looking rather dazed, had voiced his own question. "Who am I?"

~tbc~

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**A/N**: Let us know if it's _too_ confusing. . .


	2. Chapter 2: Billy and the Kid

**Disclaimer**: We own two cats and a dog. And some fish. But, um, nothing to do with Supernatural.

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**Chapter Two**: _Billy and the Kid_

He blinked in disbelief at the man on the bed. "What?"

"I—" the man looked up at him with a lost look. "I don't know who I am."

"What? How do you not know who you are?" he demanded. This was just getting better and better wasn't it? Not only was some weirdo lying half-naked in his bed, but the guy didn't even know his own name. The guy really was a freaking weirdo.

The man shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I just woke up and. . . nothing. How about you?"

"What? I don't know who you are," he replied.

"But you know who you are?"

He shot the man a look that clearly asked 'what kind of stupid question is that?' Out loud he replied, "Of course I do!" From the bed the man gave him a questioning look, waiting for him to continue. "I'm. . . uh."

What the Hell.

Who was he again?

He blinked. "I, uh—" He fumbled in his pockets and pulled a wallet from the back of his jeans. He pulled out a few cards until he found the one he was looking for. Pulling out the driver's license he stared at the picture a long moment.

The image, a picture that was presumably him, meant nothing to him. The short dark hair, the facial features, none of it seemed familiar at all. He looked over at the name. Billy Greer. Somehow, that meant nothing to him either.

However the kid, well he was practically a kid anyway – couldn't be more than about twenty-three – was still looking at him expectantly so with a half a shrug he said, "I'm Billy Greer." Apparently.

"But you don't remember?"

This was really starting to freak him out. What in hell had they been drinking last night?

"No," he finally admitted dropping his wallet on the nearby dresser and wondering exactly what they should do next.

"Maybe we had some kind of accident?" Kid suggested, then added, "My head really hurts."

"Mine did too, it went away though," he said with a shrug. And how would they have really ended up half-dressed in a motel room if they'd been in an accident? He pointed to the bathroom. "Go get dressed, then we'll figure this out."

Nodding, and still clutching his sheet, the young man grabbed his clothes from the floor and practically sprinted for the bathroom, the door swinging shut behind him.

Slipping his own shirt on, he took stock of his belongings. He was wearing a t-shirt and a oldish pair of jeans. Across the room was a small duffle bag, which probably held someone's clothing. Whose, he did not know.

In another corner of the room a leather jacket was drapped over a chair. He walked over and picked it up. Judging from the size he decided it would not fit tall-naked-guy. Therefore it had to be his. He slipped the jacket on and sank down into the chair.

A weight in the pocket caused him to investigate, revealing a pair of keys. Car keys. Well at least he knew they had some way to get. . . well, somewhere.

A moment later, a now dressed Kid walked into the room. He looked about almost timidly. He started to say something then stopped.

"What?"

"It's just. . . I can't find my wallet," he admitted.

Billy sighed. "Well I don't know where you put it," he replied.

"Right. 'Course not," the kid muttered sinking back down on the bed. "Uh, Billy?"

"What?"

The kid swallowed nervously. "Why d'you think we were, uh. . . you know," he finished rather lamely.

"Were what?" Billy prompted.

Blushing, Kid looked away. "Not wearing much," he muttered.

Jumping up, Billy moved away. "I have no idea who you are, or why you're in my motel room, but I can guarantee you it wasn't for _that_,"he snapped.

"Your room?" Kid asked not making any reply to the other half of Billy's statement. "How do you know it's not my room?"

"'Cause it ain't, Fruitcake."

"Hey! I'm not a fruitcake!" he argued back.

"No? I'm not the one who seems to think we're gay!"

"I never said. . . I just mean. . . why else would we wake up half dressed in a room with only one bed?"

"I don't know, but I can tell you that it isn't that."

"How? You don't remember your own name."

While Fruitcake may have had a point, it was clearly not one Billy was going to consider. Ever. But the comment did bring up another very important issue. Neither of them knew who they were, and they really probably ought to do something about that.

Like find out where exactly they had gotten one hundred proof moonshine and shoot the guy who had sold it to them.

"Um, Billy?" Fruitcake was talking again, so he looked up to where the kid was now going through his wallet.

What the hell was the kid doing in his wallet?

"What are you doing?" he snapped.

"I just thought maybe there was something of mine here. But, uh, I'm not so sure your name is Billy—"

"What do you mean?" he asked striding across the room to retrieve his wallet.

"Well, your, uh, credit card kinda says Tom Scholz," he explained meekly handing back 'Billy's' wallet.

"Well uh. . . huh," He muttered looking at the two contradictory names. "Weird."

"Weird? That's it?"

Shrugging, he looked back at Fruitcake. "I'm sure there's a reason."

They both fell silent for a while. After a while Fruitcake looked at him again, "You think we should go to a hospital?"

"What for? Does your head still hurt?"

"No not really. I kinda meant for the whole mass memory loss, amnesia thing. . ."

"Oh. Right."

"I mean it's not normal right?" Fruitcake questioned worriedly.

"No," Billy/Tom replied, "Certainly not normal. But I really don't know how much help doctors would be. I mean physcially we're not hurt so it's not like a brain injury or something."

"Well, what do you suggest? Just sit around here wondering why we woke up half-dressed in some motel?"

"Right. Lets go, then," he announced standing up and pulling out the set of car keys he found.

Fruitcake followed him to the door but paused once they got outside. The motel rooms opened onto a cement walkway which shortly later became a parking lot. A full parking lot.

"How do we know which one is ours?" Fruitcake asked.

Examining the key closely he announced, "We're looking for a Chevy."

Fruitcake scanned the lot and pointed at a dark green new model car, "There's one over there."

But Billy/Tom was not listening. He had noticed another Chevy parked only a stall down from their room. "Not that one, Fruitcake," he muttered moving towards the shiny black vehicle.

Fruitcake turned to see where he was looking. Following him to the car Fruitcake looked at it skeptically. "This one?"

Sliding the key into the lock of the gorgeous '67 impala, Billy/Tom grinned widely as the lock clicked open. "Oh yeah."

"It seems kinda. . . old."

Whirling to face Fruitcake, he gaped openly at the younger man. Did he not see the beauty that was right in front of him? "Old?" he spluttered.

"Uh. . . No, I guess not."

Narrowing his eyes, he glared at Fruitcake. The man fidgeted a bit under his gaze. "Maybe I just won't let you ride in my _old _car."

Fruitcake seemed about to apologize but changed his mind at the last second. "How do you know it's not my car?" he asked.

"Oh, trust me, Fruitcake. This baby does not belong to you. Besides the keys where in my pocket," he added smugly. "Now get in before I change my mind."

Obediently Fruitcake slid into the passenger seat as Billy/Tom made his way around to the driver's side, admiring every inch of his car as he went.

Finally he sat down in the driver's seat. He was taking in the feel of the steering wheel in his hands, when Fruitcake's voice intruded into his moment.

"Hey look at this! We're feds!" Fruitcake announced excitedly.

Billy/Tom turned to see what had his passenger so worked up. The kid had opened the glove compartment and found a small box. On the top of which two federal ID tags lay, bearing their pictures.

"Maybe we were undercover or something, that's why you have fake ID's." Fruitcake rattled on while Billy/Tom took the box from his hands.

Pushing the top ID's away revealed more laminated tags. Different agencies, different names, but all the same two faces. His and Fruitcake's.

"Uh, Fruitcake?" He called, interrupting the kid's excited rant. "I don't think we're feds. In fact, I'd hazard a guess and say we're about as far from it as one can get."

Fruitcake looked confused so he tilted the box to let the other man see the multitude of forged badges. He blinked, still confused, "But why would we have—?" he asked, his mind clearly not caught up with the newest theory yet. Finally, his eyes widened, rather comically. "We're – we're crooks?"

"It would seem so," Billy/Tom replied, removing the key from the engine. "C'mon."

"But the hospital?"

"Not happening," he told the kid curtly. "Not so long as we don't know who's out there, waiting for us."

They sat in silence for a while. "I don't feel like a criminal," Fruitcake finally muttered quietly.

"You don't look like one either," Billy/Tom commented. He was really going to have to find a better name for himself. Fruitcake suited the kid just fine, for now. He'd even stopped complaining about it.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, Fruitcake."

The kid sighed. "Would you stop calling me that?" Okay, scratch that part about not complaining. Not like he could do anything about it. Fruitcake may be tall, but he was scrawny. Billy, or Tom, or whoever he was, felt certain he could take the kid if he had to. Not that he would have to, right?

"Maybe we should ask around," Fruitcake was saying uncertainly, craning his neck to see around the parking lot. There was no one else there. "Maybe someone knows us, or knows what happened to us, at least."

"If we've been using fake credit cards and IDs, I doubt anyone around here knows who we really are." And that kind of sucked, when he thought about it.

Fruitcake threw his arms up in a helpless gesture. "Well, what should we do then? We have to figure out who we are soon, especially if we're. . . if we're bad guys. . ." He didn't look too happy at the thought.

"Yeah, later," Billy/Tom agreed. "I'm starving, man."

Fruitcake did a double take and stared at him as he returned the key to the ignition. Oh, how that car purred. He could see himself driving it, even if the memory completely eluded him.

"You're hungry?" Fruitcake's disbelieving voice broke through his thoughts rather rudely. "At a time like this? Don't you think we have slightly more important things to worry about?"

He was quickly becoming very annoying. Billy, or Tom, wondered how he had ever put up with the kid before. Assuming, of course, that he actually knew the kid.

"You better shut your cakehole, Fruitcake. I'm letting you ride in my car, and I say we get food."

Fruitcake slouched in his seat, looking decidedly uncomfortable for his height. As the car weaved out of the parking lot, he heard the kid muttering. "It _could_ be my car. . ."

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**A/N**: Hopefully this chapter was less confusing than the last one. Let us know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3: The Adventures of

**Chapter Three**: _The Adventures of Ted Nugent and Fruitcake_

"You're disgusting."

Tom, because he had decided he felt more like a Tom than a Billy for now, took another large bite out of his burger, letting relish and mustard drip down his fingers. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until he'd gotten to the tiny restaurant and smelled the food cooking. Man, his stomach had growled.

"And you're a fruitcake, Fruitcake," Tom said through a mouthful of bread and beef. The kid was sitting across from him, making a face at his eating habits. He'd been studying the kid's features most of the time they'd spent sitting here, and still nothing came to mind. Maybe they really didn't know each other. Then again, he hadn't known his own face in the mirror. All he did know was that he was one hell of a looker. Not bad at all.

"Hey." He waved to the waitress as she passed by their table. She smiled back – well, of course she did. Who wouldn't smile at him?

"Are you even paying attention to me?" Fruitcake's whiny voice cut in. He really did sound like a fruitcake when he talked that way. Tom congratulated himself on a well chosen nickname.

"Of course I'm not paying attention to you," Tom told him frankly. "Why the hell would I pay attention to you?" He made a point of staring back over at the waitress.

Fruitcake sighed, looking a little frustrated. He hadn't actually eaten much of anything since they'd arrived. The only thing he'd ordered was a cup of coffee, and even that looked untouched.

"You going to drink that?" Tom asked, nodding to it.

"I didn't realize you cared," Fruitcake grumbled. He picked the coffee up, held it for a few moments while he frowned pensively, and set it back down.

"I don't care," Tom said, "It's just that I paid for it, and I hate to see my hard earned money go to waste."

Fruitcake snorted. "Oh yeah, I bet it was hard earned all right. You probably stole it!"

"Hey! Not so loud!" Tom hissed. Fortunately, no one was really listening to them.

"What am I supposed to think?" Fruitcake complained, not lowering his voice much at all, "I can't even remember who I am! And where's my wallet anyway? Maybe you mugged me," he finished, eyeing Tom bitterly.

"I did not _mug_ you," Tom said defensively, "How come your pictures are on half the fake IDs if I mugged you? Why the hell were you in my motel room if I mugged you?" Damn, he'd gone and brought that up again.

"You seem pretty comfortable with the whole idea of being criminals," Fruitcake grumbled, not mentioning anything about the motel. Maybe he didn't want to talk about it either.

Tom swallowed the last of his breakfast before responding. "The way I figure, there are worse things to be."

"Like what?" Fruitcake asked dejectedly. It seemed this whole criminal thing was really bothering him. "What if we murdered people? How can you be okay with that?"

"Hey!" Tom held up a hand to stop him. "No one said anything about murdering people! All we found was a couple fake cards. We're probably just con artists or something."

"Oh, great, con artists," Fruitcake said sarcastically, "All we do is defraud innocent little old ladies out of their money, then." He let his head drop to the table with another heavy sigh.

"Why does it have to be little old ladies?" Tom wondered. It was almost like the kid was intent on finding the most depressing scenario possible. At that point the waitress came to give them their bill, so he dropped the subject.

He cuffed Fruitcake on the shoulder to get him up, and after paying the two of them left the restaurant. He didn't fail to notice that the kid hadn't taken one sip of that coffee. In fact, Fruitcake moped for most of the drive back to the motel. He looked so miserable that Tom actually started feeling bad for him.

Until he started talking again, that is.

"Maybe you kidnapped me. . ." the kid murmured, mostly to himself, but seeing as it was rather silent in the car Tom heard it.

"What?" he said irritably, "Why the hell would I kidnap you? You're the most annoying person I've ever met!" This kid's theories just kept getting more ridiculous.

Fruitcake glared at Tom. "I'm annoying!" he repeated indignantly, clearly thinking otherwise. "What does that make you?"

Tom shrugged lightly. "Me? I'm amazing."

The kid went silent, scowling at the dashboard. Tom glowered at the road. He didn't know why, but he felt pretty offended. Fruitcake seemed pretty quick to jump to the conclusion that Tom was the main bad guy behind all this. Not to mention, the silence building in the car was slowly driving him insane.

"Don't we have any music, or something?" Tom demanded finally.

"I don't know," Fruitcake grumbled. "It's not _my_ car," he added spitefully.

"Well, check, will you?" Tom said, gesturing to the glove box. Fruitcake obeyed, somewhat to his surprise, and before long he pulled out a worn box of cassette tapes. The kid stared at them incredulously.

"Cassette tapes? _Cassette tapes_? What are we in, the eighties?"

Tom shifted uncomfortably. There was something odd about that statement, like they'd had this conversation before. Was he remembering something?

Fruitcake started rifling through the tapes and checking the labels. The disbelief in his voice kept escalating with every name he read out. "AC/DC? Metallica. . . Led Zeppelin. . . Black Sabbath. . . What kind of music is this?"

"Hey, if you don't like it you can start walking," Tom told him impatiently, gesturing to the door. As hard as he tried to concentrate on it, the fleeting moment of familiarity had faded away. Nothing came to mind. He recognized the band names, but that was it.

"Just put something on," he told Fruitcake.

With a resigned sigh, the kid plucked out a tape at random and popped it in. As soon as the music started up, Tom felt a lot more at ease. He _had_ heard this song before. He might even be able to sing along. . . if he could just remember how the lyrics went. They lingered at the back of his mind, just out of reach.

"AC/DC," he said with a grin, finding he could at least place which band it was.

"Whatever," Fruitcake muttered.

Tom shrugged and turned the music up. He could faintly hear Fruitcake complaining, something about it being too loud, so he turned it up even louder.

"Hey! Will you stop that?" Fruitcake practically shouted in an effort to be heard, "We still have to figure out who the hell we are! Turn it off!"

Tom responded without really thinking about it. "Sorry, Sammy. I can't hear you, music's too loud."

Almost immediately Fruitcake shut the music off. This was followed pretty quickly by Tom pulling the car to a dead halt at the side of the road. What the hell? How dare the kid turn off _his_ music? That wasn't supposed to happen. Tom knew it, without really knowing how he knew it.

"Why did you call me 'Sammy'?" Fruitcake demanded.

"Why the hell did you turn my music off?" Tom retorted. Only then did it occur to him that he really had called Fruitcake 'Sammy', and he couldn't explain why. It had seemed like a normal reaction at the time.

"Do you remember something I don't?" the kid went on, yanking the cassette tape out of the player before Tom could put it back on. "Do you know who I am? Have you been lying to me this whole time?"

Whoa. Calm down. "God, you're paranoid," Tom said. "Why would I pretend to lose my memory? How exactly does that help me in any way?"

"I don't know," the kid said. After a moment he slouched in his seat, looking defeated. "Why did you call me that if you don't remember anything?"

Tom paused, considering. "You seem like a Sammy," he decided. As soon as he said it, it was true. Sammy the Fruitcake. It was completely fitting.

"So you think my name is Sam?" the kid said slowly. "I don't—"

"Not Sam," Tom interrupted, "You are definitely not a Sam, Sammy."

"What the hell?" the kid griped, "Why should you get to decide? You know what, I don't feel like a Sam, or a Sammy."

Tom smirked. "Now you're going on about your _feelings_? Fruitcake. . ."

Fruitcake ignored him. "I think my name's. . . John," he said finally.

Tom didn't have much to say to that. He just gave the kid a skeptical look.

"What?" Fruitcake said defensively, "Why can't my name be John? It's better than Sam. Plus, I think I've heard it before," he insisted.

Tom didn't think that comment merited a response. Seriously, who hadn't heard the name John before?

"Hey, don't look at me like that! Okay, all I meant was I think that's my name. It sounds right. It's John. . . and something that starts with a 'D'. . ."

"Doe?" Tom volunteered snidely. "Because if you're gonna say 'John Doe', I'll smack you."

"Dean," the kid blurted out suddenly. Something lit up in his face, "I think that's my name – John Dean."

"You're name is not John Dean," Tom said derisively. It was the stupidest name he'd ever heard.

"How would you know?" the kid snapped, "You don't even know your own name!"

"Sure I do," Tom said. It was complete bullshit, but he didn't care. Possibly under the influence of the music, a name had popped into his head. "I'm Ted Nugent."

The kid gaped at him, incredulity written all over his face. "You are _not_ Ted Nugent," he said finally.

"And how would you know?" Tom challenged.

"First off, I don't even think you can play guitar," Fruitcake said.

"Hey!" Tom complained, "You don't know if I can play guitar! I bet I play a very mean guitar."

"Well, if you can be Ted Nugent, I don't see why I can't be John Dean," the kid grumbled.

"No," Tom said with a note of finality. "You're either Sammy or Fruitcake. Since I'm feeling generous I'll let you pick."

"Why?" the kid cried. This time is really was a whine. He was practically pouting.

"I'm leaning towards 'Fruitcake' myself," Tom told him, enjoying every minute of it.

The kid glared at him. "Sam, then," he bit out.

"You mean Sammy," Tom said cheerfully. Then he snatched the box of tapes from newly-crowned Sammy and began looking through them for some music to put on. "You know, I wouldn't have pegged you for someone who knew Ted Nugent."

The kid looked like he was thinking. Must have been hard work. "I think I know the music you listen to, which means I probably know you, somehow. Or I used to, anyway."

"Well, I hope you know me. You were in my goddamn motel room."

"Do we have to assume that everything's yours?"

Tom grinned and started up the car again. "Of course everything belongs to me. I'm the older one here, clearly I've got seniority."

"Oh right, because that makes sense," Sammy said. "Jerk."

Tom's response was nearly automatic as he turned the music back on. "Bitch.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

By the time they reached the motel again it was getting hot out. Eventually, despite all their frequent disagreements, they had decided that they needed to go through everything in the car and the motel room thoroughly. Hopefully there would be something, somewhere, that would give them more of a clue as to who they were.

"I'll take the car," Ted announced the instant they arrived. He had decided by this time that Ted Nugent was by far cooler than Tom Scholz.

The kid muttered something along the lines of "whatever" and headed for the room, where he stood fumbling with the keys for a few seconds. Ted went round to the back of his impala and popped the trunk open.

No sooner had he done so than he slammed it shut again, eyes wide.

"What's wrong?" Sammy asked. He must have heard, or caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. Now he was staring at Ted expectantly.

"Uh," Ted cleared his throat to stall for time as he made up an excuse. "Nothing in there, except an old lunch I must have forgotten about. . . months ago."

It seemed to work. The kid's face screwed up in disgust. "Dude, that's gross." He turned, and finally getting the door to the room open, disappeared inside.

As soon as he was gone, Ted leaned heavily against the trunk of the car. "Who am I?" he whispered to himself. Making sure there were no other people in sight, he gingerly propped the trunk open again. There could be no mistaking what he saw this time.

Nearly any weapon he could think of, any weapon he could name, was in there. Guns, and lots of them, different makes and models: handguns, shotguns, a couple rifles, an old revolver. Knives, sheathed and in different sizes: daggers, hunting knives, military knives and even a machete. Under all that there were a few sharpened wooden stakes, a crossbow, a crowbar, several boxes of ammunition and gasoline.

He shut the trunk again. This was not good. Actually, he was pretty sure that this was as far from good as it was possible to get.

Well, con artists seemed pretty unlikely at this point, he thought bleakly. What kind of con artist kept an arsenal in the trunk of their car?

"Maybe I'm some kind of black ops special forces military guy," he told himself. It was a pathetic, feeble excuse, even to his own ears. More likely, he was some kind of mass murderer.

"Hey!" Sammy's head poked out the door, and he held up something excitedly. Ted vaguely registered that it was metallic and shiny. "I found a phone!" the kid said excitedly, "I mean, I think it's _my_ phone! I own something!"

"Yeah," Ted said distractedly. Another thought had just occurred to him. If he was some kind of killer, what did that make the kid? Obviously they worked together, if the fake IDs were anything to go by.

"Check your pockets, maybe you have one," the kid was saying. He had flipped his phone open and was going through it like it was a new toy. Some of his excitement faded after a moment or two. "I don't remember any of these names. . ."

Once again, he vanished back inside the room. Ted glanced at the car uncertainly. Did he really want to know what else was in there?


	4. Chapter 4: Arsonists Anonymous

**Disclaimer: **We do not own Supernatural.

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**Chapter Four**: _Arsonists Anonymous_

Suddenly feeling very uncomfortable around his car, Ted had followed Sammy into the motel room. The kid was sitting on the bed with a duffel bag full of clothes and a worn out jacket where he had presumably found his cell phone.

"I think these are all mine," Sammy said, gesturing at the clothes, "They don't look like they would fit you."

Ted ignored what was most likely a shot at his height, and sat on the opposite side of the bed, facing the wall. Telling the kid about the trunk of the car was out, he'd decided that back in the parking lot. Sammy didn't need to know, especially since he seemed to have forgotten about them being criminals for the time being.

How had he and this kid ended up like this anyway?

People did not just wake up one day and become killers, did they? There had to be some explanation.

He briefly wondered if he should somehow dispose of the 'equipment' from the trunk. But decided against it, as he was not sure he could do it without attracting suspicion. Despite not knowing who or what he was, he was certain of one thing – it would not be good for either him or the kid if the police got a hold of anything from that trunk.

He really did not think that Sammy would fare well in jail.

Not that he was particularly eager to find out how he would manage either, but he could just tell the kid was not cut out for it. Strangely, in spite of how annoying the kid was, he felt the need to shield him from this.

To protect him.

Probably because it was more than likely his fault that Sammy was involved in. . . well what ever it was they were involved in.

Ted sighed. This was so not good, but dwelling on it would get them nowhere. Maybe they should just stop looking. Take one set of ID's and disappear somewhere. Start over. However, without knowing who they were and what they had done, they had no idea who was after them, or how much they knew.

As long as they had no memories, they were sitting ducks.

He shook his head. Behind him, Sammy was still going through his belongings, completely oblivious to the horror that sat hidden in the back of the impala. He scuffed his shoe on the floor, dismally.

A fine white powder fell to the floor from the treads of his sneakers. Ted stared at it blankly. Where had that come from? He stood up, and followed his steps back across the room until he stood by the front door where there was a small pile of the white powder.

His first thought was a desperate hope that they were not involved in drugs as well as. . . well it was best not to speculate on what they had used the guns in the trunk for.

A close second thought was, can really bad drugs screw with your mind this much?

He stared down at the powder a long moment before a third thought crossed his mind. The powder seemed to have been spread in a rather deliberate line directly in front of the door. It was disturbed now, obviously he and Sammy had walked through it a few times. But why would anyone deliberately pour drugs on the floor?

Bending down he scooped up a small sample with one hand. He had just realized that it was nothing but salt when Sammy spoke. "What are you doing?

Ted turned to face him. "There's a bunch of salt in front of the door," he informed the younger man while holding out the white powder for Sammy to see.

Sammy brows furrowed in confusion. "Salt? That's weird," he replied, making his way to the door. He paused in front of the window and turned to Ted. "It's here on the widow sill, too."

Walking over to see for himself, Ted saw that there was, in fact, a line of salt spread purposefully across the sill. Clearly nothing they owned was going to answer any questions for them. All they seemed to be doing was further confusing themselves.

"What do you suppose that's about?" Sammy asked, looking to him as though he held all the world's answers.

"How would I know?" he snapped, a little too irritably. It was not the kid's fault, but damn this was turning out to be a bad day.

At least, he thought it was a bad day. In reality, he supposed this could be the best day of his whole miserable life, and he would have no clue.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After finding the salt they had both run out of ideas for the time being. Ted had situated himself on the bed and had spent the afternoon channel surfing, and trying not to think about his trunk. Sammy, on the other hand, had settled in the chair in the far corner of the room and had taken to reading an old newspaper. It had been the only thing he could find.

He seemed to be determined to read every single word in it, though.

Ted flipped to yet another channel. He really had stopped actually looking at what they were, just automatically switching it every few minutes. He was fairly confident he had been through the entire listings. More than once.

"Hey. . . Ted," Sammy called, interrupting his thoughts.

With a sigh, Ted muted the television and turned to look at the kid. "What?"

"Two of the obituaries are circled. . ." he said holding out the paper.

Hesitantly, Ted got up and accepted the paper, not sure he wanted to look, but at the same time knowing he had to. He glanced down at the page, and swallowed hard. The obits were for two fourteen-year-old girls.

Oh God.

Why would they have marked this? Surely they had not. . . done this. He looked back up at Sammy who was looking at him confused.

"Do you recognize them?" Sammy asked, hopefully, probably mistaking his paleness for recognition.

Ted just shook his head not sure he could trust his voice at the moment. He moved to hand the paper back, not having really read the blurbs when a loose page fluttered out onto the ground. Leaning forward Ted scooped it up and skimmed the article.

It was an article, cut from another paper. It had pictures of the same two girls next to a picture of a burn-damaged classroom. Ted suddenly felt rather nauseous.

There had definitely been a gas can in the back of his car.

"Maybe we knew them?" Sammy suggested having come over to look at the new article.

"Yeah, maybe," he replied weakly, hoping the kid could not tell he thought otherwise. Hell, he did not need his memory to know that had he known the girls. He would not have saved this article of their death, otherwise. That was just. . . morbid.

Great, he was the world's first squeamish serial killer. Just great.

No. Until they had memories, or concrete proof, neither of them were serial anythings. He took a deep breath. No need to freak the kid out. If Sammy wanted to think they were here for a funeral, who was he to argue?

He shoved the paper and the cut out article face down on a table and made his way back to the bed. "I think I'm going to turn in," he said, not wanted to sit up and speculate on the reason for keeping such disturbed reading material.

"Uh, sure. But Ted?" Sammy asked. "Since there is, um, only one bed. . ."

"Oh, no way in hell am I sharing a bed with you Fruitcake," Ted announced firmly.

"What? Where am I supposed to sleep then?"

"I don't care. You pick, so long as it's not on my bed."

"Well, that's not fair!" Sammy whined. "We don't even know it's your room. Besides, even if it is, I mean, we were clearly traveling together. . ."

He glared sharply at Sammy. "Just how many times must I explain this to you, Fruitboy. I am not gay."

"Well then why would we get a room with only one bed?" Sammy retorted.

"I don't know! Maybe the motel was full!" he yelled back.

Sammy started to say something then stopped. After a moment he admitted, "I didn't think of that. . . but then why wouldn't we find another place?"

"I don't know. But I do know that I am not sharing this bed with you," Ted replied as he headed for the bathroom to get ready for bed.

"But – but, why do you get it?" Sammy stammered.

"Because I said I do. Seniority remember?"

"That's a load of bull. We should at least flip a coin for it or something!"

The kid was persistent he'd give him that. "Look we'll find another place in the morning," he offered as he stared at the two toothbrushes on the counter wondering which was his. He so did not want to use Sammy the Fruitcake's by accident, that would just be gross.

It was kind of funny actually, for all he knew he was a mass murderer who burned school children alive and here he was worrying about toothbrush germs.

"We can't," Sammy protested.

"What? Why not?" he shot back while mentally playing eenie-meanie-mynie-moe with the toothbrushes.

"If someone knows us, and knows we're here they might come looking for us."

Ted looked at Sammy startled. He had a point. Damn, why hadn't he thought about that? He nodded, "Yeah, yeah. Good thinking."

Sammy left him alone after that, long enough for him to make a choice – the red one – and finish in the bathroom. As soon as he headed back for the bed though, the kid sprung his next idea.

"We should alternate," he declared.

"Alternate what?"

"Who gets to sleep on the bed. If we're going to stay here and the hotel is full it's only fair," Sammy reasoned.

Ted sighed. He was too tired to argue, and maybe tomorrow another room would open up? "Fine," he consented. Sammy looked pleased with himself so he quickly added, "I get it tonight."

"What? Why?" Sammy asked. "It was my idea, I should get it first."

"Nuh, uh. Don't work like that, Sammy," Ted replied flopping onto the bed.

"Give me one reason why you should get it first," Sammy challenged.

Ted smirked at him from the bed. "Well, we're alternating right?" he asked innocently. When Sammy nodded he continued. "And if I recall right, last night you slept here, and I slept on the bathroom floor. Therefore, you already had your turn and that makes it mine."

"That doesn't count!" Sammy tried to argue, but Ted just crawled under the covers and told him to have a pleasant sleep.


	5. Chapter 5: Who You Gonna Call?

**Disclaimer: **We don't own Supernatural. Or Jensen Ackles's hair. (If we did we might know what colour it is - thanks for all the input, though, except now we're more confused than we were before. . .)

* * *

**Chapter Five: **_Who you gonna call?_

After finding the salt they had both run out of ideas for the time being. Ted had situated himself on the bed and had spent the afternoon channel surfing, and trying not to think about his trunk. Sammy, on the other hand, had settled in the chair in the far corner of the room and had taken to reading an old newspaper. It had been the only thing he could find.

He seemed to be determined to read every single word in it, though.

Ted flipped to yet another channel. He really had stopped actually looking at what they were, just automatically switching it every few minutes. He was fairly confident he had been through the entire listings. More than once.

"Hey. . . Ted," Sammy called, interrupting his thoughts.

With a sigh, Ted muted the television and turned to look at the kid. "What?"

"Two of the obituaries are circled. . ." he said holding out the paper.

Hesitantly, Ted got up and accepted the paper, not sure he wanted to look, but at the same time knowing he had to. He glanced down at the page, and swallowed hard. The obits were for two fourteen-year-old girls.

Oh God.

Why would they have marked this? Surely they had not. . . done this. He looked back up at Sammy who was looking at him confused.

"Do you recognize them?" Sammy asked, hopefully, probably mistaking his paleness for recognition.

Ted just shook his head not sure he could trust his voice at the moment. He moved to hand the paper back, not having really read the blurbs when a loose page fluttered out onto the ground. Leaning forward Ted scooped it up and skimmed the article.

It was an article, cut from another paper. It had pictures of the same two girls next to a picture of a burn-damaged classroom. Ted suddenly felt rather nauseous.

There had definitely been a gas can in the back of his car.

"Maybe we knew them?" Sammy suggested having come over to look at the new article.

"Yeah, maybe," he replied weakly, hoping the kid could not tell he thought otherwise. Hell, he did not need his memory to know that had he known the girls. He would not have saved this article of their death, otherwise. That was just. . . morbid.

Great, he was the world's first squeamish serial killer. Just great.

No. Until they had memories, or concrete proof, neither of them were serial anythings. He took a deep breath. No need to freak the kid out. If Sammy wanted to think they were here for a funeral, who was he to argue?

He shoved the paper and the cut out article face down on a table and made his way back to the bed. "I think I'm going to turn in," he said, not wanted to sit up and speculate on the reason for keeping such disturbed reading material.

"Uh, sure. But Ted?" Sammy asked. "Since there is, um, only one bed. . ."

"Oh, no way in hell am I sharing a bed with you Fruitcake," Ted announced firmly.

"What? Where am I supposed to sleep then?"

"I don't care. You pick, so long as it's not on my bed."

"Well, that's not fair!" Sammy whined. "We don't even know it's your room. Besides, even if it is, I mean, we were clearly traveling together. . ."

He glared sharply at Sammy. "Just how many times must I explain this to you, Fruitboy. I am not gay."

"Well then why would we get a room with only one bed?" Sammy retorted.

"I don't know! Maybe the motel was full!" he yelled back.

Sammy started to say something then stopped. After a moment he admitted, "I didn't think of that. . . but then why wouldn't we find another place?"

"I don't know. But I do know that I am not sharing this bed with you," Ted replied as he headed for the bathroom to get ready for bed.

"But – but, why do you get it?" Sammy stammered.

"Because I said I do. Seniority remember?"

"That's a load of bull. We should at least flip a coin for it or something!"

The kid was persistent he'd give him that. "Look we'll find another place in the morning," he offered as he stared at the two toothbrushes on the counter wondering which was his. He so did not want to use Sammy the Fruitcake's by accident, that would just be gross.

It was kind of funny actually, for all he knew he was a mass murderer who burned school children alive and here he was worrying about toothbrush germs.

"We can't," Sammy protested.

"What? Why not?" he shot back while mentally playing eenie-meanie-mynie-moe with the toothbrushes.

"If someone knows us, and knows we're here they might come looking for us."

Ted looked at Sammy startled. He had a point. Damn, why hadn't he thought about that? He nodded, "Yeah, yeah. Good thinking."

Sammy left him alone after that, long enough for him to make a choice – the red one – and finish in the bathroom. As soon as he headed back for the bed though, the kid sprung his next idea.

"We should alternate," he declared.

"Alternate what?"

"Who gets to sleep on the bed. If we're going to stay here and the hotel is full it's only fair," Sammy reasoned.

Ted sighed. He was too tired to argue, and maybe tomorrow another room would open up? "Fine," he consented. Sammy looked pleased with himself so he quickly added, "I get it tonight."

"What? Why?" Sammy asked. "It was my idea, I should get it first."

"Nuh, uh. Don't work like that, Sammy," Ted replied flopping onto the bed.

"Give me one reason why you should get it first," Sammy challenged.

Ted smirked at him from the bed. "Well, we're alternating right?" he asked innocently. When Sammy nodded he continued. "And if I recall right, last night you slept here, and I slept on the bathroom floor. Therefore, you already had your turn and that makes it mine."

"That doesn't count!" Sammy tried to argue, but Ted just crawled under the covers and told him to have a pleasant sleep.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ted had a dream where he was not called Ted, and he chased a woman who was his mother down a long empty hallway while the little girls from the newspaper exploded in flames over his head. When he woke up, he couldn't remember the nightmare, his mother, or his name.

He was up hours before Sammy, and had nothing better to do than rummage around the room until he found a laptop on one of the dressers. Sammy must not have seen it the other day; there was a sweater and an empty bag of chips on top of it. He opened it up and typed in 'memory loss' on the search bar. As he might have expected, he came up with a bunch of medical pages listing symptoms of Alzheimer's and dementia.

Ted hazarded a guess that he and Sammy were probably a tad young for that.

He went and typed in 'amnesia' without much more luck. While it seemed that anything from a concussion or head injury to drugs and alcohol could cause various forms of amnesia, it seemed very rare for anyone to entirely forget who they were. Even most cases of psychological amnesia tended to be about repressed traumatic events.

Killing people was probably a traumatic event, wasn't it?

There was one type of dissociative amnesia that involved forgetting who you were, or possibly thinking you were someone else, and usually resulted in suddenly leaving home and traveling somewhere entirely different. It would explain why they were in some random motel, but it was also supposed to be extremely rare. What were the chances that both he and the kid had it?

At the point, Sammy groaned and rolled over on the floor. He was sleeping on his jacket and a pillow that Ted had allowed him to steal from the bed. He rolled off both and hit his head on the leg of the end table. Ted had considered waking him up and offering him the bed, but since it was now seven in the morning, that seemed rather pointless.

"Wha'zat?" Sammy asked thickly, sitting up and squinting at the glow of the computer screen.

"Laptop," Ted said. "Found it over there." He gestured in the general direction of the dresser.

"Huh." Sammy yawned and stretched, and looked like he was thinking about getting up but couldn't quite bring himself to do it. "Do you remember anything?" he asked Ted finally.

"Nope."

"Oh." Sammy yawned again, and finally pulled himself off the floor. "I was kind of hoping it would go away. . . you know, if we slept on it."

"What, like a bad dream?" Ted joked.

Sammy grunted, and shuffled off to the bathroom.

They apparently didn't keep much food of their own. Sammy found squished box of old crackers at the bottom of his bag and Ted managed to dig out a package of M&M's from the back seat of his car – he still refused to open the trunk. He'd started going through his own duffel bag while Sammy had been in the bathroom brushing his teeth, and had stopped short when he found a small knife and a lighter tucked away between his clothes.

There's nothing wrong with having a lighter, he tried to tell himself numerous times. Unless said lighter was being used to set young girls on fire. He didn't want to think about that.

"I guess we have to get breakfast from that place again," Sammy commented, "What was it? José's Grille?"

"No, we shouldn't go to the same place too many times," Ted said vaguely.

"Why not?" Sammy asked, "Someone might recognize us."

That was kind of what Ted was afraid of.

Instead he said, "It's boring. Besides, I'm tired of burgers."

"You had _one_," Sammy protested.

"For all you know, I could eat them everyday," Ted retorted. It suddenly occurred to him that Sammy hadn't eaten much of anything the day before. Worrying about the crapload of weaponry in his trunk had made Ted forget about getting lunch and dinner while they'd lounged in the motel, and the kid had never brought it up. The kid was probably starving. Hell, _he_ was starving, and he'd eaten breakfast yesterday.

"We'll go get something," he promised, heading to the car.

This was harder going than it should have been. Most of the tiny restaurants and diners in the town were full.

"You know," Ted said, quickly getting annoyed as they drove by yet another full parking lot, "I wouldn't have pegged this place as a tourist trap."

"Yeah, not really," Sammy agreed, "It's kind Middle-of-Nowhere'sville."

"Very naturey," Ted concluded, "Lots of chicks, though. . ."

"I kind of noticed," Sammy said dryly as a group of women crossed the street.

"Where the hell are we, anyway?" Ted asked.

"Uh. . ." Sammy went through their stuff and pulled out the local newspaper they had looked at yesterday. Ted tried to look natural, but he really wished the kid hadn't brought that with him. The whole charred classroom picture gave him the creeps. Especially when he could not stop thinking about his lighter.

"Springfield," Sammy said after scanning the front page.

"Springfield," Ted repeated flatly.

"Uh, yeah."

"Does it say what state?" Ted prodded.

Sammy looked. And looked. And looked some more. "Uh, no."

"Great," Ted muttered, "We could be anywhere."

They stopped outside a convenience store, deciding that might be their best bet for food so far. However, before they went in, Ted noticed a small diner across the street that a crowd of women were just leaving.

"Hey, let's try there, Sammy," he said, pointing at it. He barely noticed a short blonde girl stop in her tracks across the street as he did so. He reached into his back pocket wondering if he had any spare change. It would probably be better than using a fake credit card, less likely to attract unwanted attention.

The girl's eyes widened.

"Sounds good," Sammy said. He must have been hungry, because he immediately crossed the street without checking for traffic. Ted, caught off guard, jogged to keep up. Damn kid and his stupidly long legs.

At that point, he couldn't ignore the girl anymore, because she took one final, petrified look at them coming towards her and took off at a full sprint in the opposite direction.

Apparently, Sammy noticed her too. "Hey!" he called, "Do you know us? Don't go!" Ted reached out and tried to grab the kid before he ran across the street, but it was too late.

"We're not going to hurt you!" Sammy shouted as the girl disappeared behind a couple houses. Ted caught up with him snagged him by the shoulder.

"Are you insane?" he demanded, "You can't go chasing after her like that!"

"But she looked like she knew us!"

"She looked like she _didn't_ want to know us," Ted said. A gloomy feeling had settled over him again – that girl had looked about the same age as the ones who had died in the classroom fire.

"But we need to talk to her! She might be able to tell us who we are," Sammy argued.

With a sigh, Ted relented, "Alright, we'll look for her. But no chasing her down okay?" he demanded with a pointed look at the younger man, "We'll just follow her."

Quickly, they headed in the direction the girl had gone. Fortunately, no one on the street had seemed to notice the strange scene, which in itself was kind of seriously odd. But Ted was willing to take what they could get.

They cleared the houses and looked around. They were standing in a small back lane that ran parallel to the street they had been on. The girl was no where in sight.

The lane was long, and Ted was pretty sure she could not have gotten all the way to either end, even running full out, before they had arrived. Which meant she probably jumped one of the fences bordering the small lane. Grabbing the top of the first fence, Ted hauled himself up enough to peer into a small backyard.

He had just enough time to see a a large black shape charging the fence before he reflexively dropped. Trapped behind the fence the dog snarled and barked at them.

"Uh, I don't think she went there," he said backing away and turning to head for the next yard. He had just reached the fence when he heard a siren wailing. He jumped startled, and grabbing the kid by the arm he pulled them behind a nearby dumpster.

"What the—" Sammy gasped.

Ted pressed himself against the wall and wished he could slow his rapidly beating heart. Taking a few deep breaths he peered around the dumpster cautiously, just in time to see a fire truck whiz down the cross street, oblivious to them. He sighed, and finally released the tight grip that he had not realized he still had on Sammy's forearm.

Pulling away Sammy glared at him. "Dude, what the hell?"

"Sorry," he mumbled quietly.

"Man, we've lost her now," the kid complained, clearly having not noticed the sirens. Or at least, not remembered that they could very well be wanted criminals.

And if that girl's expression when she had seen them was anything to go by, it was looking more and more likely that they were, in fact, involved in the deadly school fire.

"Come on. Let's go eat," he said, starting back the way they had come.

"But—"

"I haven't eaten since yesterday. And you didn't even eat then, so you can't tell me you're not starving, lets go."

Thankfully the kid followed, but he did mutter something that sounded rather unflattering under his breath. Ted chose to ignore it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After eating they headed back to the motel. Sammy was sulking next to him, in the passenger seat, because he had vetoed Sammy's suggestion that they drive by the local high school to see if they could locate the mystery girl.

No way in hell where they going back to the scene.

Assuming of course that they had ever been there in the first place. There was still no real proof that they had caused that fire and until there was proof they were not killers. Right?

Ted pulled into the parking lot, dismally noting that the 'no vacancy' sign was still illuminated. Guess he was sleeping on the floor tonight.

"She could be the only link we have to who we are," Sammy spoke up for the first time since they left the diner.

"I get that, but she was clearly freaked to see us, so even if we could find her I think chances are low she's going to sit down and tell us our life stories," Ted snapped.

"We should at least try," Sammy continued.

"And what do you suppose we say to her? Hey, little girl, we sort of woke up yesterday with no recollection of who we are, but don't be afraid, we just want to ask you why you ran away from us?"

"Ah, well. . ." Sammy stammered, "No I guess that would seem a little. . ."

"Strange? Bizarre? Freaking weird?"

"Yeah. Something like that," Sammy agreed as they finally made it into their room. They fell silent for a moment before Sammy spoke up again, "Hey, Ted, why do you suppose she ran from us?"

Ted looked away. Oh, he had a pretty fair guess, but it was nothing he wanted to share with the kid if he could help it.

"I mean. . . What if we've done something really bad. Like, worse than just cheating old people out of their money. . . ?"

"Sammy," Ted started warningly but the kid was still going.

"What if we've hurt people? I – I don't want to be a criminal. . ." he trailed off into a moment of silence before adding quietly, "What if I remember and I don't like who I am?"

Ted just shook his head. He had no answers for the kid. Hell, he was pretty sure that neither of them was going to like who they were, he was just trying to hold out hope it was not as bad as it looked.

"I don't know," he finally admitted.


	6. Chapter 6: A Tale of Two Idjits

**Disclaimer**:We do not own Supernatural.

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**Chapter Six**: _A Tale of Two Idjits_

Ted didn't see the girl again. After lounging around the motel for a little while with nothing to do, he and Sammy had looked around town for more clues. What they found was best summed up as diddlysquat.

They came back to the motel in the evening, exhausted and frustrated. The kid disappeared into the bathroom to take a shower. Ted supposed he was really going to regret agreeing to alternate who got the bed. He flopped down on the bed while he still had it and decided to watch some tv.

The first thing he saw was the local news. There had been another fire, this time in somebody's home. None of the family had been home at the time except for a fourteen-year-old boy, who had died. He'd gone to the same school as the two girls who had died just last week. Authorities were blaming a gas leak.

Ted stared at the tv for a good long time. There was no way he and Sammy could have started that fire. They'd been too busy looking for skittish-blonde-girl and trying to figure out who they were. Was it possible, then, that they weren't responsible for the other fires either?

But then, that fire was being ruled as an accident. There was no indication, according to the news, that it was even connected to the previous fire. Besides, if they didn't have something to do with it, why had they collected newspaper clippings and obituaries concerned with the last fire?

Ted turned the tv off and sighed.

"Are you okay?" Sammy asked. He had just come out of the bathroom.

"Fine," Ted said wearily.

"You don't look so good," Sammy observed.

"Better looking than you," Ted quipped, brushing past Sammy to take his own shower. It was going to be a long night on the floor.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was official. Sleeping on the floor sucked. Ted tossed and turned all night trying to get comfortable, and when he finally found a spot that didn't seem like a spike was driving into his back he felt like his shoulder was being crushed against a rock. He woke up with a kink in his neck and a numb arm.

Sammy was already up and about, pacing, and had his jaw set in a stubborn way that didn't bode well. Ted had barely sat up when the kid launched his assault.

"We have to go check out that school," he said.

"What time is it?" Ted groaned.

"So far it's the only lead we have to who we are or what we were doing in this town before we lost our memories," Sammy went on, completely ignoring Ted's question. It seemed like he'd been practicing this speech while Ted was asleep.

"Is it still dark outside?" Ted asked, looking at the crack between the drawn up curtains over the window suspiciously.

"If we don't check it out we might never find out," Sammy continued, "We can't just keep holing up here in this crap motel, okay?"

Ted pulled himself to his feet and squinted at the digital clock on the side table. "Dude, it's four in the morning," he moaned. This was even earlier than when he'd gotten up yesterday.

"Look, Ted, we have to go," Sammy said firmly.

"Yeah, whatever. I'm going back to sleep," Ted grumbled, pushing his way past the kid and collapsing on the bed. If Sammy wasn't going to make use of it, he may as well.

He regretted it just a little in the morning. A couple extra hours in a real bed had not done wonders for the kink in his neck, and Sammy had taken his sleepy murmuring as a seal of approval and was now determined to go check out that school.

"I'm telling you, it's a bad idea." It was a little late to be saying this, perhaps, since they were already in the car and driving towards the school. Not to mention, it was becoming a little hard to convince the kid that it was actually a bad idea when Ted couldn't tell him why he thought so. He suspected Sammy might already have a few unhappy ideas about who they really were, but none so bad as psycho killers with an arsenal of shotguns in the trunk of their car.

No, that cheery thought was going to be Ted's alone.

"Have you got any better ideas?" the kid countered. Ted had been hoping he wouldn't say anything like that.

"Yeah, uh, how about we hit the bar this evening and find ourselves some babes? I haven't been laid in—"

"Wait, you're telling me that's the most important thing on your mind right now? You don't even know when you last got laid!" the kid snapped. "Maybe you've _never_ been laid."

"Oh, I definitely have," Ted said, "You on the other hand. . ." he waved his hand in a gesture to indicate he thought it was unlikely.

The kid sulked, slouching down in his seat as far as he would go. It wasn't very far. He was just too tall.

"Well, it's been at least three days anyway," Ted went on, "And that's a pretty long time to go without—"

"You're right," the kid murmured distractedly, digging around in his pocket.

"Of course I'm right," Ted said, more caught off guard that the kid was actually agreeing with him. What was he up to?

"It has been three days," Sammy muttered, pulling out his cell phone and flipping through it. "No new messages. . ."

"So?" Ted wondered, not sure if the kid was still talking to him or just mumbling to himself.

"So, you'd think someone would call!" Sammy said, "I mean, I have all these people on my contacts list, and as far as they know I've dropped off the face of the earth the past couple days. But no one's called, no text messages, no email – don't you think someone should care? Don't we have family or friends or anything?"

Nothing like that had ever occurred to Ted. "Maybe you told them you'd be gone for a while," he suggested.

"What about yours?" the kid asked suddenly.

"What?" Ted didn't want to think about having a family. Did they know about all the weapons in the back of his car?

"Your phone," the kid clarified, "Has anyone called you?"

"No." Maybe that was a relief. Maybe no one did care about him.

The kid was fiddling around with his own phone. "Give me yours," he commanded.

"What, my phone? What do you want my phone for?"

"There has to be someone who knows both of us," Sammy insisted. "Let me check your contacts against mine. Maybe there'll be a common name, or something."

Shrugging, Ted handed it over. He wasn't sure he'd miss the thing anyway.

After a few seconds Sammy exclaimed, "Dude! You have like, eight people on your contacts list."

"Yeah?" Ted replied. He hadn't actually bothered to look at his phone before.

"That's like, _no one_," the kid told him. "I have more like thirty on mine."

"Well, aren't you Mr. Popular," Ted said.

Sammy's face brightened. "Hey, there's a Sam on your list."

Ted smirked. "Told you your name was Sammy."

"No, it says Sam. And it's your phone, meaning you called me Sam. If it is me. . ." he added somewhat uncertainly.

"Why don't you call the number and find out?"

Sammy fidgeted nervously. "What if it's not me?"

Ted rolled his eyes. "Then you say 'Sorry, wrong number' and hang up. It's not rocket science."

The kid was still unconvinced. "What if they have caller ID and they're expecting you to answer?"

Ted sighed. "You think too much, Fruitcake."

The kid went silent for a while, scrolling through his phone list and checking Ted's occasionally to see if a name matched. They had already reached the school by the time he was done, but Ted parked a block or so away, still feeling uncomfortable coming to the place.

What if they had been here before? And not for anything good. . .

"So, I found a Bobby in both our phone books," Sammy said. "It's about the only name in common, but then you have hardly anyone on yours. Can't believe we didn't think of this earlier. . ."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll call him," Ted said, snatching his phone back. He was getting a little annoyed with the kid's tone. So what if he had friends and Ted didn't? Surely, he couldn't have dragged the kid on a murdering spree without anyone noticing, then.

As soon as the thought occurred to him he felt a little sick.

He dialed Bobby's number. It rang three times until a man's voice answered. He sounded a little worried. "Dean?"

"Uh. . . yeah," Ted said. He didn't really have a clue, but he figured why not? He could be Dean.

"You and Sam alright?"

Ted, or was he Dean now? looked at Sammy. "Yeah, uh, he's here. . ." _I think_, he added to himself. The kid watched him curiously, clearly wanting in on the conversation.

Bobby's next words threw him for a loop. "Did you find the witch?"

"Come again?" Ted asked.

"The witch, you know," Bobby told him. "The one you went up there looking for?"

Ted wondered if maybe he had heard wrong. "Uh. . . which one?"

"There's more than one?" Bobby asked, "Is there a whole coven? That's bad news. You boys are in some serious trouble. Listen, tell me where you are and I'll—"

By that point Ted had heard enough. He flipped the phone shut, effectively hanging up on Bobby. Sammy was looking at him expectantly.

"What is it? Does he know who we are? Did he say anything?"

"Oh, he said some things alright," Ted, or possibly Dean, muttered. "I don't know how we know him, but that guy is insane."

"Insane!" Sammy cried, "Ted, this guys _knows_ us, we can't just hang up on him like that. Let me talk to him."

"Whatever," Ted said. Sammy was already dialing his own phone. "I'm telling you, complete nutjob."

He watched Sam's face as Bobby answered. "Yeah, Bobby? . . . Yeah, uh, Sam, that's me. . ." He glanced at Ted. "Dean? Uh. . . I guess he's here. . ."

Ted watched as Sam's eyes widened and then narrowed. He looked confused.

"Come again?" There was a slight pause, after which Sam said in a loud, incredulous voice, "Witch hunt?" Whatever Bobby was saying on the other end was abruptly cut off, because Sam shut his own phone not too long after that.

"Yeah," he turned to Ted finally, looking serious, "He's definitely insane."

"What did I tell you?" Ted said, swinging the car door open. "I guess we're on our own."


	7. Chapter 7: How to Lose A Guy in 2 Hours

**Disclaimer**: We do not own Supernatural.

WARNING: We know nothing about Wicca. We apologize if this chapter (and others) is horribly inaccurate.

* * *

**Chapter Seven**: _How to Lose a Guy in Two Hours_

The school was still in session, although a large portion of it had been cordoned off with yellow caution tape. According to the newspaper article, which Sammy had apparently read and memorized, the fire had started in one of the science classrooms when the students were using Bunsen burners. It was believed to have been a freak lab accident.

Dean, because he had decided it was a slightly better name than Ted as the only Ted he had been able to think of over the past few days was Ted Bundy, was a little relieved to hear this. It would have been pretty hard for them to have started a fire in a classroom full of teenagers, right? The newspaper made it seem accidental.

Then again, two fatal accidental fires in the same town in the span of a week did seem pretty suspicious.

"What are we going to do?" he asked Sam, "Just loiter outside and wait for that girl to come out? 'Cause that won't freak her out at all."

Sammy clearly hadn't thought out his brilliant plan that far. "Maybe we should ask around," he suggested, nervously. "I was kind of hoping if we caught her in a crowded place she would feel less threatened. . ."

"We saw her in a pretty crowded place yesterday, remember?" Dean told him.

"Hey, you two back?"

Dean and Sam turned, and Dean froze. There was a stocky, middle-aged man approaching them from the curb, wearing a law enforcement uniform that marked him as a local cop. And he looked like recognized them.

This could not be good.

Dean's first instinct was to grab the kid and bolt, but the cop was too close now and they had no where to go. Sammy, even if he did think they were criminals, didn't seem to sense the danger they were in.

"Uh, hey. You remember us?"

"Sure do," the cop replied, stopping in front of them. He didn't move like he was going to reach for his gun or his handcuffs or anything of the sort. Dean tried to relax a bit. "You were the two the county fire department sent down to inspect the building, am I right?"

Sam glanced hesitantly at Dean, "Yeah, I guess that's us."

The cop nodded. "Funny thing is, I put a call down to the fire chief a couple days back, and he says he didn't send no one. . ."

"Uh. . ." Sam looked at Dean again, as if he was supposed to start supplying the answers.

When neither of them responded, the officer fixed them with a hard glare. "I think you two boys better stay away from here," he gestured at the school, "This was fire. Kids died. It's not some game."

They both nodded mutely.

"Don't let me catch you 'round here again," the cop said. With a final nod he headed back to his cruiser.

"That was close," Dean muttered, dragging Sammy back to the car and driving as far away from the school as possible after the cop left.

It seemed the kid had different concerns on his mind. "Why were we pretending to be inspectors from the fire department?"

"Who knows?" Dean said, "But one thing's for sure – we are not stalking some poor kid from the local high school just to get some answers. Especially not with that guy following us around." He jerked a thumb to indicate the cop, even though the police car was long gone. In fact, he had been so overzealous in his hurry to get away from the school that he had driven them right outside of town

"Then what else do you think we should do, Ted—I mean Dean— I mean—this has got to stop. We really have to figure out who we are."

At that point, however, Sam had lost Dean's attention entirely. Dean swerved the car around and brought it to a halt at the side of the road, craning his neck to look out the window and make sure he was seeing right.

In a mostly empty field along the road, framed by trees on one side and a farm on the other, a group of women had formed a circle and were holding hands with arms raised. There were a lot of them, and they seemed to be chanting or praying. But this wasn't what had caught his undivided attention.

All the women were naked.

"What are you—" Sam stopped short as he finally caught sight of what Dean was seeing. His jaw went slack and he openly gaped like a goldfish for a few moments before he was able to string together a few coherent words.

"We probably. . . I mean we shouldn't. . . What are they doing?"

"Who knows?" Dean murmured, "Who cares?" If only he could drive the car a little closer.

They must have arrived at the tail-end of whatever the women were doing, because they soon dropped their arms and broke the circle, and, much to Dean's disappointment, clothed themselves.

As they drove back to the motel Sammy commented, "You know, I really don't think I'm gay. . ."

"That's what I've been saying all along, Fruitcake."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dean jerked awake in the bed. He looked around the room confused, unsure of what had woken him up, just sure that something had. On the floor Sam groaned, rolled over and resumed snoring.

Not the kid then.

He blinked tiredly at the clock, which informed him it was just after five am. Dean sighed, he was getting the distinct impression he was not a morning person. So why was it he was continually up before the sun?

A knock sounded on the door and Dean nearly fell out of bed when he jumped at the sound. So that might explain why he was awake. Tentatively he moved to the widow and peeked out, hoping desperately that the cop from earlier had not changed his mind about them and somehow tracked them down.

A lone man stood outside their room. He did not look familiar, but then Dean did not know his own face, so he was not really surprised. The main point was he was alone, and didn't look like a cop.

He nudged Sam's sleeping form with his foot. The kid grunted but didn't wake up. He kicked him a little harder and the kid finally sat up shooting him a dirty glare. "What was that for?" he hissed.

Dean just pointed to the door as the strange man knocked again, a little louder this time. "Some guy," he told Sam when the younger man looked at him questioningly.

"Well?" Sam said gesturing to the door.

Dean nodded and cautiously approached the door. He felt Sam come up behind him. Finally he pulled the door open.

"'Bout time," the man on the doorstep muttered when he saw them. He was quite a bit older than both of them, his greying hair half hidden under a tattered ball cap, only his beard really showing its original brown. His clothes were wrinkled and he looked tired, as though he had driven most of the day and night.

And as far as Dean could tell, he had never seen the man before in his life.

But the man was now standing there looking at them expectantly, probably waiting for them to let him in, so Dean took his best guess. "Uh. . . Bobby?"

He looked at Dean strangely a moment. "What in hell's going on with you boys?" he demanded, moving past them into the room. Dean shrugged when Sam shot him a confused look. Shutting the door he turned to watch the older man, who had stopped in the middle of their room.

"You phone me .Just to hang up on me, both times. So I speed all the way up here, worried you've gone and gotten yourself in over your heads and here you both are fine and dandy, and snoozing away. You ijits trying to give me a heart attack?"

"Uh," Sam stammered looking to Dean for help.

Dean looked back equally unsure what to do. Here they were with some lunatic who apparently knew them, but they had no idea who he was. Or what to say to him for that matter.

And really, what does one say to a loony who thought they were out hunting some coven of witches for crying out loud.

"Well?" Bobby asked sitting down on the edge of the bed and looking at them carefully. "You got a witch problem or not?"

Dean exchanged another look with Sam. Well, this guy was clearly nuts right? So what did they have to lose telling him the truth? So far he was the only one, besides that girl anyway, who seemed to know them. Even if he was off his rocker. Besides he probably already knew enough to turn them over to the cops, just no one would believe him if he kept up the way he had been on the phone.

"Okay," Dean finally began, "This is going to sound really strange. . ."

"Stranger than last time? You boys had better not be about to tell me you think you've found aliens again."

"What?" Dean stammered, while at the same time Sam stared at the man stunned, and managed to mouth 'aliens'.

Bobby looked at them both strangely, "You boys alright? You don't seem yourselves."

"I – well we – I mean aliens?" Dean asked blinking. This man was clearly nuttier than he had thought. But then he seemed to think they had thought they found aliens.

Maybe they had all escaped from some loony bin somewhere. That certainly might explain a few things.

But he didn't _feel _crazy. 'Course he didn't feel like a murderer either.

Narrowing his eyes Bobby looked at them both suspiciously now. He reached into his jacket with one hand while addressing them coldly, "Who are you and what have you done to them?"

"Hey," Dean called raising his hands slightly, recognizing the move for a concealed weapon. "We haven't done anything, to anybody" he spoke quickly. "I hope," he added under his breath.

"Then you had better start explaining," Bobby warned, still gripping something under his jacket.

"Okay, look," Dean tried again. "The thing is, we well, we woke up here four days ago. And uh, we sort of have no idea who we are."

Bobby blinked at him, then turned to look at Sam. The kid still looked a little wide eyed from the whole alien conversation but he finally found his voice, "We found your number in our phones. We thought maybe you would know us."

"So . . . you have no idea who you are?"

Sam shook his head and Dean added, "Haven't got a clue who you are either."

Bobby seemed to relax a little, though Dean could tell he was still on high alert, as though he expected an attack or something. Great, even the people who they knew thought they were dangerous.

"One of these days," Bobby muttered, "You two are going to be the death of me. How the pair of you manage to attract this much trouble, I'll never know."


	8. Chapter 8: Black Magic Woman

**Disclaimer: **We do not own Supernatural. However, it is one of our many great fears that one day we will make a typo that makes it sound like we do own it, and then the lawyers will attack.

* * *

**Chapter Eight**: _Black Magic Woman_

"So, you really do know us?" Sam asked, clearly setting aside his concerns about the man's grip on reality in favour of learning who they really were.

Dean was less willing to set aside that little detail.

"'Course I know you. You think I'd drive half way cross the country for two complete strangers?" Bobby replied looking at them closely. Then he shook his head. "You're telling me neither of you remember anything?"

"Well, Dean remembered my name, sort of." Sam piped up helpfully.

Bobby rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, last I heard from you boys, you were heading up here on the trail of some witch. So maybe a spell?"

Dean blinked at the man in disbelief. The guy looked completely serious. Like he did not think it at all odd that he was sitting there suggesting that their memory had been erased by a witch's spell. Enough was enough, no way was he letting this nut job stay here.

"Hold it right there," Dean said. "Look uh. . . Bobby. No offense, but, well. You're insane. So we're really sorry to have bothered you and all, but maybe you should go. Now."

Bobby sighed, but made no move to leave. "Sorry, I forgot. You don't even remember your names, of course you won't remember the rest. Look, I know this is all going to be hard to take, but witches are real. So are a host of other paranormal beings," he added as an afterthought. "But we'll set that detail aside for now. What we need to do is find a way to reverse this spell, and get your memories back."

"I said, I want you out," Dean said pointing to the door. Sam grabbed his other arm and gestured with his head for Dean to follow him. They moved a short ways across the room. Bobby remained on the bed, still watching them.

"What?" he asked, his voice low, as he turned to the kid.

"Maybe we should just let him stay, I mean—"

"He's insane Sammy, or did you miss that part?" Dean hissed.

"No, I mean, obviously he's not. . . well. But Dean, he knows us, and well, maybe we look out for him or something. We probably shouldn't just throw him out. Besides, what harm can it do to let him stay?"

Dean glanced back over at the man on the bed. He didn't seem to be a threat to them at the moment. Though Dean was still wary, as the man had been gripping some sort of weapon earlier. Looking back to the kid, who was now fixing him with what could only be described as a 'puppy dog look' Dean sighed, "Alright, he can stay. For now."

He made his way back over to the man and repeated his offer to let him stay. "But that don't mean I want to listen to more of your ramblings," he added.

Bobby shook his head frustrated. "I'm being straight with you Dean," he said. "I know it don't seem possible. But there are a lot of things out there. Things most people never know about. But you and your brother," he said with a nod over in Sammy's direction, "Aren't most people."

"Yeah, whatever," Dean muttered before stopping and staring at Bobby, "Wait, brother?"

The man blinked at them stunned. "You didn't know? What the hell did you think you were?"

"Uh. . . we didn't really know," Sam offered, finally joining the conversation.

Dean snorted, "Fruitcake there," he said gesturing to his . . . brother. "Thought we were marching under the rainbow banner."

Bobby just stared at Sam. The kid blushed brightly, "I just said it seemed logical, the whole one bed thing and all," he muttered seemingly to the floor. "But I told you, you were right all ready."

"Yeah, whatever," Dean replied dismissively. Then addressing both men he asked, "What do you say we go find some food. Since we're up and all," he added darkly.

"Are you even capable of thinking with anything besides your stomach?" Sam muttered.

Bobby smiled. "Seems memory is the only thing you two have lost," he commented. Then added, "I think I'll stay here if that's fine with you, I'm beat."

Dean looked at the older man suspiciously. Leaving this lunatic alone in their room? Sammy was already grabbing his jacket, seemingly unconcerned. Was he just being paranoid? Then maybe he had reason to be paranoid, he thought, remembering the trunk of his car.

The man was already stretching out on the bed, not waiting for an answer and Dean sighed. There really was not anything incriminating in the room anyway, and they had already told this guy as much as they knew, so Dean could find no real valid objections.

The car, and therefore the contents of it's trunk, would be with them at the diner anyway.

"Fine," he reluctantly muttered, turning to follow Sam out the door, hoping he would not regret this.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He knew he should have kicked the loony-toon out, when he'd had the chance. He knew it. Damn that kid and his 'puppy-faced what-could-it-possibly-hurt' look.

They had only been gone maybe a half-hour. Had a quick breakfast, and had hurried back, as Dean had still been feeling on edge about the stranger. Sam had remained oblivious. Hell, he'd even brought some food back for the guy.

At least he had the sense to seem concerned now.

He and Sam were both standing frozen in the doorway of their motel room, looking in on the chaos. This was so not what their room had looked like when they had left. Everything had been pulled apart. Everything.

The mattress was on the floor, the dresser drawers removed, the bathroom cupboards emptied. All the furniture had been pulled a few inches away from the wall, as though to allow one to see behind them.

And in the middle of it all sat Bobby.

"That's it!" Dean called finally moving into the room. "You. Out."

Bobby looked up. "Hey," he greeted. "Sorry 'bout the mess. Was hoping there'd be a hex bag. Turns out not, looks like our best shot is to track her down."

"No, no, no," Dean said coming into the room. "We are not going to track down anyone. You are going to leave, and we are going to pretend that you were never here. Understand?"

"Dean," Bobby tried once more to reason with him about completely insane, unreasonable things. "I did a little looking while you were gone. There's a entire convention full of Wiccan women in town. One or some of them must be into real witchcraft. Somehow they've wiped your memories, and you are just going to have to trust me, if you want them back."

"Why the hell should we trust you?" Dean demanded. "You're crazy!"

Bobby sighed, glanced at Sam who still looked completely freaked out, and seemed to make up his mind about something. "Fine, fine. I'm going," He moved to the door.

"Just like that?" Sam said, flashing another uncertain look at Dean. Why did the kid keep expecting him to come up with everything?

"You boys'll thank me when this is over," Bobby said cryptically, "Or at least, you'd better," he added in a lower voice.

"Wait, what are you going to do?" Sam asked anxiously. But Bobby didn't answer. He was already out the door. Sam turned on Dean angrily. "Well, that was just great, Dean! You chased him away."

Dean stared in disbelief. "The guy was nuts."

"He's still the only one we know of who knows who we are," Sam said, "And who knows what he's going to go do now. He could be tracking down some poor woman who he thinks is a witch. We have to stop him!"

Dean sighed. Then, unable to come up with a decent argument to Sam's logic, he swung the door open and headed out to look for Bobby.

Except the man was no where in sight. How far could he have gotten in a couple of minutes?

"Bobby?" Sam had followed him out and was looking around as well. The parking lot was still full, and there was no sign of Bobby or anyone else as they walked between the rows of cars.

"He drove here, right?" Sam said, "Where do you think he parked his car?"

Dean shrugged. "Either he didn't park it here or he didn't take it with him when he left."

"We have to find him," Sam insisted.

"I don't really see how it's our problem," Dean replied tiredly. All those early mornings were starting to catch up to him. "If he wants to go chasing after some witch that doesn't exist, I say let him."

"Dean, we're the reason he came here. He obviously believes the witch is real, and if he finds 'her' what do you think he's going to do?"

"Uh, have a nice whacked-out chat?" Dean asked hopefully. In reality, he had a pretty good idea of what Sam was getting at.

Sammy felt the need to elaborate anyway. "He talked about _hunting_ her down, Dean. He's going to kill her!"

Yeah, that was probably a bad thing. But he couldn't shake what Bobby had told them, that they had used to believe this stuff. It would certainly explain the back of his car, if they thought they were hunting monsters and other. . . things. But that was insane. Like, really freaking I-cut-the-heads-off-cats-because-the-voices-tell-me-to insane. You didn't just recover from that level of crazy because you lost your memory, did you?

"Hey, are you listening to me?" Sam demanded, "We have to find him before he hurts someone!"

Dean nodded. "He said something about a Wiccan convention. We could check around and see if we catch him there." And what they were going to do if they found him, Dean had no idea.

As it turned out, the Wiccans were not too hard to find. There were several of them staying in the same motel as Sam and Dean.

"Are you witches too?" one of them asked cheerfully after Sam and Dean had introduced themselves (vaguely) and explained what they were looking for (even more vaguely).

"It's so rare to meet male witches," her friend said, flashing Dean a stunning smile, "Welcome!"

"Uh, no, no – we're not—" Sammy began.

"Why thank you," Dean said, completely cutting the kid off, "We were worried we wouldn't fit in." He had no idea where all this bullshit of his was coming from, only that it kept popping into his head and he was running with it.

"Oh no! We always welcome new practitioners to the craft," the one that had smiled at him answered, "And even if you're still in the broom closet, that's fine too. Besides, there are too few men in this town, if you know what I mean. . ." She looked at him slyly.

"Is that so?" said Dean, grinning, "Well, I certainly wouldn't mind—" At that point something hard and elbow-shaped jabbed into his side and he had to work not to wince and glare at Sammy.

"We're looking for a friend of ours," Sam said easily, as if he hadn't just stabbed Dean in the ribs with his bony arms. "He's sort of an older guy, um, baseball cap, beard. . ." he made a gesture around his face, "You haven't seen him or anything?"

The girls looked at each other and shook their heads. "No, sorry. Is he a witch too?"

"Not so much," Dean said.

They thanked the ladies, and then Sam forcibly dragged Dean away. Cockblocker.

"Okay, where else do you think Bobby would have gone to look for witches?" Sam asked.

"I dunno, but I could use some pie," Dean said.

Sam gawked. "Dude, pie? Pie? At a time like this?"

"A man's gotta eat, Sammy," Dean told him.

"Is that all you think about? Food and – and what, sex?"

Dean considered it. "Pretty much."

Sam threw his arms up in exasperation. "You know, maybe Bobby was wrong about us. I'm not seeing how we could possibly be related."

"Yeah. You're nowhere near as handsome as I am."

They wandered toward the impala. "So are we just going to interview all the Wiccans in town and hope we hit them all before Bobby does, or what?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head, clearly seeing the problem with that plan too. "There has to be a better way. . ." However, he was at a loss to think of one.

Dean was still brooding over how insane this whole 'hunting' thing was. Bobby obviously believed it, enough to follow them out to this town because he thought they were in danger and track down some witch to do God knows what because he thought it would help them. And then there was the teenagers being burned to death around town, and the gasoline and the shotguns and the knives and whatever else in the back of his car. The whole thing was creepy and messed up in ways he couldn't begin to understand.

Maybe the kid was right. Maybe when they they remembered, if they ever remembered, they were going to wish they hadn't.


	9. Chapter 9: Exorcism 101

**Disclaimer**: We do not own Supernatural.

* * *

**Chapter Nine**: _Exorcism 101_

The search for Bobby was not going well, to say the least. They asked around some more, but no one they talked to had seen a man matching Bobby's description, or if they had they had no idea where he had gone. The one relief was that Bobby didn't seem to have hurt anyone.

"Maybe he won't," Sam said uncertainly, "I mean, maybe he's not such a bad guy. He's just a little unhinged."

Dean wasn't so optimistic, but he didn't share that thought with Sam.

"I mean, when we first realized we didn't remember anything, I thought you were—" But whatever Sam was going to say about all the wonderful things he'd thought Dean was, he didn't finish. He practically flattened himself against the window as he caught sight of something and called out, "Stop the car."

"Why?" Dean asked, although he did so. He didn't have to wait for Sam to answer however, because just then he saw her, kneeling in the dirt just outside the local cemetery. It was the same blonde girl who had run away from them a couple days earlier.

Sam was out of the car before Dean could stop him, and Dean had no choice but to follow.

The girl didn't notice them approaching her this time. She was too busy digging in the dirt, tear tracks streaked down her face and soil rubbed up to her elbows. At one point she tried to wipe her eyes with the clean part of her arm, but misjudged and got dirt smeared across her forehead.

"Hey," Sam said softly as they neared her. The girl's head jerked up. There was no doubt that she recognized them. Dean tried not to notice that she looked absolutely terrified.

The girl scrambled backwards from Sam, her hands moving in a jerky, desperate sort of clawing motion, but she seemed to realize she wasn't going to get away this time.

"Please," she said, her voice breaking in sobs, "I'm so sorry. . . don't hurt me. . ."

Sam looked alarmed. He glanced quickly at Dean before turning back to the girl and trying to reassure her. Dean was finding it now impossible to shake off the nagging, guilty feeling he'd had all along that they had done something horrible.

"We're not going to hurt you," Sam promised the girl. He crouched down as if he hoped that making himself look smaller would make her feel better. "My. . . brother, and I, we don't remember much. Why don't you tell us what's going on?"

The girl sniffled and hiccuped. "I didn't mean to do any of it. . . I-it said that you two were going to kill me. It said that you were hunters and if you found out it was m-me you would kill me."

Oh God, Dean thought. They really were killers. Or at least, someone had told this girl that they were, and what reason would they have to do that if it wasn't true?

"No one's going to kill you," Sam said emphatically. "Who told you that?"

"It did," the girl sobbed, not seeming to realize that this wasn't really much of an explanation. "I d-didn't know what it was. I didn't know the spell would work. . ."

"Spell?" Sam said, sounding awfully confused. Dean was confused as well, but somewhere in the back of his mind, a cynical little voice told him that he shouldn't be surprised.

"I found an old b-book, and I read it, and there were spells in it, and I tried one and i-it came. I didn't know – it promised to do w-whatever I w-wanted – but I didn't want. . . it killed them – but I didn't want that!"

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked gently. But Dean could see that the kid wasn't as calm as he tried to sound.

"Hannah and Kate and Josh!" the girl cried, as if they should know. "They're dead, and it's my fault. It killed them for me. . ."

"Whoa, wait, the kids who died in the fires?" Sam said. Of course he knew – he was the geek who memorized newspaper articles. "That can't be your fault. Those were accidents."

Dean wondered if that same logic could be applied to the two of them.

"No!" the girl shouted, "It killed them! It told me it did! Just like it told me y-you were coming and you would want to kill me and I just wanted you to forget, so – so I cast a spell and I buried it, but it—"

"Wait up – forget? You made us forget?" Dean said. How the hell did she suppose she'd done that?

The girl nodded, still crying. "But it didn't work," she protested, "You guys saw me the other day and you headed straight for me, so I knew you knew that it was me. . ."

"Actually, we were heading straight to get some burgers." Dean told her earnestly.

This didn't comfort the girl at all, if she even heard him over her own sobbing.

"How did you make us forget?" Sam prompted.

"I c-cast another spell. It was in the b-book. I thought you would just forget and leave me alone, but then it didn't leave me alone."

"A spell," Sam repeated slowly. He looked at Dean. Dean looked back at him, and shrugged. He really did not have any answers to this one. This girl was nuttier than Bobby. Was everyone that knew them insane?

"It won't go away. I buried the a-altar and the book here, but it didn't stop. It killed Josh. And n-now I can't find the altar or the book anymore."

"Okay, um, what is 'it'?" Sam asked, clearly still trying to make sense of this whole thing. Dean had given up a little while ago. Maybe they were just doomed to keep running into completely batshit people. For all they knew, they were completely batshit themselves.

The girl looked up at them, eyes still watery although she'd stopped crying so much.

"The demon," she said.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"This is _insane_."

"I know. You keep saying that."

"Well, it's really insane!"

"I know."

"I mean, really, freaking insane!"

"I know! I get it, okay?"

The brothers (and Dean was still having a hard time getting used to thinking of themselves that way), were standing in a back alley just behind crazy-blonde-witch girl's house. Her name was apparently Megan, but Dean was more concerned about this demon she kept babbling about and the fact that she thought it was real.

What were the chances of them running into two crazies in the span of two days, while possibly being crazies themselves? Damn, how many crazies did the world have in it?

"This is insane," Dean repeated, for the umpteenth billion time. Sam glared at him.

"Look, if we help her, maybe she'll help us. She seems to know something about how we lost our memories."

"Yeah," Dean said, "She thinks she cast some voodoo magic spell on us! This is nuts, Sam."

"And your idea is that we sit in that dump of a motel forever and what? Just hope our memories come back on their own?" Sam countered and Dean gave him a half shrug.

"Look, even if this doesn't get us back our memories, you heard Megan. She told the uh. . . demon, about the girls at school and Josh. But she also told it about her parents. If it did go after the kids, then her parents could be next. We've got to get them out of here."

Dean sighed and looked back to where Megan was sitting in the back seat of his car. She seemed pretty convinced that this demon was real and had really been killing the people she had been angry with. But what were they supposed to do? Hide her parents away from some fictitious creature?

"Fine," he murmured reluctantly. They would take Megan and her family back to the motel. Leave them there and go find Bobby. Maybe if he put them together they could have a talk – one crazy to another – and sort the whole ridiculous mess out.

And while he was off in wishful-thinking land, he may as well hope that all their memories would just return, and there would be some wonderfully logical, non serial-killing reason, for the arsenal that was his trunk.

Yeah right.

He motioned for Megan to join them, and explained their offer. Opening the back gate they cut through her back yard and into the kitchen of what seemed to be a rather normal and respectable house.

Too bad their daughter was insane.

Dean gestured for her to go ahead, and collect her parents. What exactly she planned to tell them, Dean did not particularly care. She took off, calling to them, while Sam and Dean stood by the back door, uncomfortably.

After a few moments Megan came back into the room, looking confused. "They're not home," she said worriedly.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. "Do you know where they might have gone?" Dean asked.

Megan shook her head, looking once again on the verge of tears. Damn he wished she would stop that.

"Should we wait?" Sam asked, once again looking to Dean for direction.

Dean shrugged, but any further answer was interrupted by a loud bang from the front of the house. Dean and Sam exchanged a look, and as one they cautiously moved into the living room. Megan followed behind them.

In the living room, they could see the front door. Or more accurately, what had been the front door lying in a pile of broken wood under the feet of a woman. She was in her late twenties and had long dark red hair.

She caught sight of them and grinned.

"Oh God," Megan gasped behind them. "It's her. The demon."

"What?" Dean asked, while at the same time the woman advanced on them, the feral grin still on her face.

"Well, well," she cooed, and Dean could have sworn her eyes suddenly turned solid black. "If it isn't the Winchester boys." With that she raised her hand and Sammy was suddenly air-born. He landed against the wall with a solid smack, sliding down to the ground.

Instinctively Dean grabbed Megan and pulled her down, back into the kitchen. The woman – demon – whatever advanced. Sam groaned and tried to roll away, but the demon-lady held out her hand again. With a gasp and a look of pain, Sam appeared to be pinned to the wall and struggling to breath.

Desperately Dean looked around for anything at all that he could use as a weapon. His gaze settled on a large kitchen knife. He grabbed it, and letting all logical thoughts slip from his mind he charged the demon-thing.

She seemed to have all her attention focused onto his brother, and Dean managed to stab at her with the knife. Blood oozed out, and Dean wondered if he should be concerned that the sight did not unsettle him much. She looked at him, and now Dean was certain that her eyes where truly solid blackness.

She flung him across the room as easily as if he had been a small toy. He collided solidly with a bookshelf which splintered and sent books flying down around him. Then she looked down at the blade protruding from her chest. She grabbed the hilt and withdrew the weapon and tossed it aside, without so much as a wince.

Across the room Sammy seemed to have been released from the invisible hold and he charged at her. Knocking her off balance she stumbled toward a stairwell that presumably lead down to the basement.

Ignoring the sharp pains from well. . . everywhere, Dean forced himself to his feet and dove at the unsteady woman. She tripped over the edge and went down the steep stairwell hard and fast, landing, unmoving, at the bottom.

Deciding not to wait around Dean scrambled back to his feet again. Normally, he would have said after a fall like that they would be safe, at least for quite some time. But this was about as far from normal as one could get, or so Dean figured.

He grabbed Sammy's arm and bolted for the door way. Sam stumbling along with him. "Let's go!" he yelled and was thankful to see Megan sprinting for the back door without hesitation.

Dean had the key in the ignition before Sam finished pulling his door shut. The engine roared and Dean floored it down the alley. He peeled around the corner and the house disappeared from view, but not before he caught sight of movement at the back door.


	10. Chapter 10: When All Else Fails

**Disclaimer**: We do not own Supernatural.

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**Chapter Ten**: _When All Else Fails. . . Salt n' Burn It!_

They tried to leave the girl at the motel, but Megan insisted on coming with them. "I have to make sure my parents are all right,"she'd said, and since she'd looked about ready to burst into tears again Dean hadn't wanted to argue too much.

There was a van neither of them recognized parked outside the house when they got there. Dean was sort of hoping it belonged to Bobby, but seeing as it screamed 'soccer mom' he really doubted it. He didn't see any other vehicles, or Bobby, in sight.

"This is great," he muttered, turning to Sam, "What do we do now?" As he did so he caught Megan scrambling to get out the car from the corner of his eye. "Hey!" he shouted, "Don't go out there! Wait!"

Dammit. He knew they shouldn't have brought her along.

With a final glance at Sam, Dean got out the car to follow. He still had a shotgun, which apparently wouldn't do him any good, but he felt better carrying it anyway. Strange how he could go from barely being able to look at the weapons to suddenly using them as some twisted security blanket.

Sam followed him up to the obliterated front door where a middle-aged woman with flecked grey-blonde hair had appeared to lecture Megan. Something about the living room being destroyed and the front door being broken.

"But Mom!" Megan insisted, pleadingly, "You're in danger – I swear, it's real—"

Megan's mother glanced up at Dean and Sam as they approached. "Did you bring these two here to kill me?" she demanded sharply. "You are grounded _forever_, young lady."

Dean barely had time to see the woman's eyes turn completely black before she raised a hand and flung him and his brother across the yard. He crashed against the side of the impala, and amidst the ringing in his head he heard Megan scream. He looked up in time to see the demon drag the girl inside.

"How the hell is it her?" he railed, struggling to get up. Man, if he had thought he ached _before_. . . "I thought that was the girl's mother!"

Sam grunted, looking in about as much pain as Dean felt. "Bobby said something about the demon being able to switch bodies. . . possess someone else. . ."

"Great," Dean grumbled, "Where the hell is Bobby?" He glanced around and noticed there was a brand new dent in the side of his car. He suddenly really badly wanted to kill something. Preferably that demon bitch.

"You okay?" he asked Sam, watching as the kid winced and stood up.

"I think so," Sam muttered, leaning against the side of the car and looking anything but. Dean felt a sudden surge of protectiveness for the kid. And rage. He was going to rip that demon bitch's lungs out.

At that point another car pulled up along the side of the road, an old Chevelle. Bobby climbed out of it and hurried toward them. He looked like he was toting a few weapons of his own under his jacket.

"Dean? Sam?" he said anxiously, "What happened?"

"That demon kicked our asses is what happened," Dean grumbled.

"It's possessing Megan's mother," Sam explained, trying to stand without the aid of the car and wobbling unsteadily, "It's got her in the house now."

"I thought I told you to wait for me!" Bobby cried. He glanced at the two of them, and then at the house. "You two didn't go and try to and charge in through the front door, did you?"

"Uh. . ." Dean and Sam looked at each other and decided not to answer that.

That itself was probably enough of an answer for Bobby. He shook his head and led them around the side of the house, where they were able to see in the window through a crack in the blinds.

It was difficult to tell what was going on. There looked to be a man on the floor, probably the girl's dad, and he was out cold. Dean caught a glimpse of the demon, still possessing the Megan's mother, and Megan herself kneeling in the center of what looked like a living room. There was wooden block with all sorts of weird symbols carved into it sitting in front of her.

"The demon must still be bound to her somehow," Bobby commented, "Otherwise I don't see why it would keep her alive. By the looks of things, it's getting her to recite some spell that will break that connection, and as soon as that happens the girl's dead. We have to act fast."

Well, that was all fine and dandy. How were they going to get in, first?

Bobby was already making his way around to the back door. When they reached it he handed Dean a liquor flask.

"What the hell is this for?" Dean demanded. Not that he didn't feel like drinking. Hell, when this was over he could go ten rounds just to try and forget everything that had happened.

"Holy water," Bobby said by way of explanation.

"You keep your holy water in here?" Dean said, somewhat impressed.

Bobby had Sam pick the lock to the back door, which the kid was surprisingly good at. Dean had an inkling that they must do this kind of thing a lot.

They were definitely insane.

Once they got in the house they could hear chanting coming from down the hall. It didn't sound like any language that Dean had ever heard. Bobby explained the plan quickly. "We have to stop the girl from finishing the spell. As soon as it sees us the demon will attack – Dean, you have to help me hold it off while Sam reads the exorcism."

"Yeah, sure, no problem," Dean muttered sarcastically. He really hoped this holy water exorcism stuff worked the way Bobby said it would.

Slowly and cautiously, they made their way down the hall to the living room. The demon's back was to them when they reached it, but she but either she had expected them or they had made some sort of noise, because she whirled on them the moment they stepped into the living room.

In an automatic, knee-jerk reaction he didn't know he had, Dean tossed some of the holy water on her face. The demon shrieked, and stumbled backwards, clutching her face as it fizzled and smoked.

He had a nagging feeling it wasn't going to stop her for long.

"Megan, stop the spell!" Sam shouted. The girl cowered by her tiny altar.

"Stop the spell and your mother dies!" the demon spat. There was still some smoke rising from where Dean had splashed her, but she seemed to be recovering fast.

"Sam! The exorcism!" Bobby commanded. The demon looked at him and with a flick of her wrist sent an entire coffee table flying at his head. Bobby managed to dodge it. Without really knowing what he was doing, Dean tackled her to the floor and emptied the flask of holy water on her face.

The demon clawed at him as he struggled to hold her down. Far stronger than any normal woman, her dull fingernails drew long gashes down his arms, raked a bloody trail across his chest and nearly ripped out a chunk of his face. At some point Bobby reappeared and doused her in more holy water, but she continued struggling. Through it all he heard Sam's voice shouting Latin words from somewhere in the background.

Suddenly black smoke started to intermingle with the greyish steam that had come from throwing holy water on the demon's skin. It was thick and dark, and poured out her mouth and her eyes and her ears. She looked like she was choking on it. Dean felt the woman's body weaken and finally go slack.

The smoke poured into the room as Sam finished the exorcism, and with a sudden wave of force, it was pulled straight through the floor and vanished.

"It's over. The demon's gone," Bobby's voice proclaimed from somewhere. Dean couldn't tell where, and he didn't care.

He let go of Megan's mother and rolled onto the floor, breathing heavily. He felt like he had broken every bone in his body and he was bleeding everywhere but, hell, somehow he was still alive.

"Mom?" he heard Megan call, and he felt a rush of air as she crossed the room and knelt by him to check on her mother.

A few moments later Sam was kneeling by Dean's side too, looking concerned. "Dean?"

"I'm fine," Dean told him hoarsely. He forced himself to sit up, and instantly regretted it as a sharp pain shot through his side. Okay, so maybe he'd broken a rib. Or three.

He still didn't have a clue who he was. He'd sort of thought, with this whole demon-witch thing being connected to them losing their memories, that they'd get them back as soon as it was sent back to hell.

He glanced over at Sam questioningly. Sam seemed to get his meaning before he asked. "I still don't remember anything." They both looked to Bobby, but he was tending to the girl and her mother.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, baby," Megan's mother was saying. They were holding each other and crying, and generally having the sort of touchy-feely moment that Dean was beginning to realize made him feel incredibly awkward. "I don't know what happened to me. . ."

At least Megan and her mother seemed to be alright. Bobby was quickly explaining them, as briefly and vaguely as possible, about the demon possession and what had caused it. Megan's mother took it all in stride, but then Dean supposed she had to, seeing as how she had just been some demon's go-kart ride.

"Witchcraft!" she exclaimed when Bobby was finished, turning to her daughter alarmed. Megan burst into a fresh round of sobs by her side.

"What about Charles?" her mother asked, finally looking away from Megan but not letting go of her.

"Your husband's just unconscious, ma'am," Bobby told her. Apparently he had already checked on the man some time between when Dean had been wrestling around with possessed demon lady and the whole exorcism. Good to know. "He'll be fine."

He headed over to Sam and Dean and looked them over worriedly. "You boys alright there?"

"Yeah," Sam said slowly, "Except, uh. . ."

"We still don't have our memories back," Dean filled in for him.

Bobby nodded, rubbing his beard. "I thought about that. I don't think the demon had anything to do with you losing your memories, that sounds more like some sort of spell or curse. I figure the girl probably cast it on her own using that altar there and the book." He gestured at the wooden box and a black, leather-bound book that was open beside it. Dean was just noticing that not only did the box have strange symbols carved into it, those symbols had also been painted over in what looked a whole lot like blood. How nuts was this girl?

"Great, so we just have to ask her to undo her magic mojo?" Dean asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid it won't be that simple," Bobby said. Dean was getting real tired of hearing him say that. Why couldn't anything in their messed up lives be simple?

"Most spells and curses are one time deals," Bobby explained, "They're meant to kill an individual or cause serious harm – they're not meant to be reversible. I think she must have used this altar and the book to cast the spell. Hopefully when we destroy them that'll be enough to break any lingering spells that are still in effect."

"That doesn't sound too hard," Dean said warily, eyeing the box and the book, as if they would jump up and bite him just to prove him wrong. He thought back to the gasoline in his trunk, "Why don't we just set them on fire, or something?"

"I already tried that!" Megan cried, "As soon as I found out about Hannah and Kate I tried to burn the book in the fireplace – but it wouldn't burn!"

Great. Of course the cursed magical book didn't burn. Why hadn't Dean thought of that?

"So we hack it into little pieces?" He suggested lamely.

Bobby was frowning thoughtfully. "I figure a book like this has all sorts of magical protections. . ." he mused.

"Yeah, we kind of gathered that with the whole 'not burning' thing," Dean said.

"Do you know how to destroy it, Bobby?" Sam asked.

"Well, it's just a theory," Bobby said, "But I figure that salt is occasionally used to ward against witches and demons, not just ghosts, so it's possible that using salt might be enough to break the protection spells on the book. . . and then we can burn it."

"You're kidding, right?" Dean deadpanned. "This is your big plan? Salt is magically going to make this thing burn?"

"It's worth a shot," Sam said to him.

"If it doesn't work we'll just have to think of something else," Bobby agreed heavily.

Not ten minutes later they had the book in the backyard. Dean and Sam had dragged a can of gasoline and a bag of rock salt from the back of the impala, and a bonfire had been set up using the book and the altar for kindling. Sam dumped a liberal amount of salt over them.

"This had better work," Dean grumbled to himself, lighting up an entire book of matches and dropping them all on the pile. It was quite possibly the most insane thing he'd done so far, and that was saying a lot.

At first, nothing seemed to happen. Dean looked over at Sam, and the kid looked back at him, shrugging ever so slightly. Clearly he hadn't noticed anything happened either. Then the cover of the book started to crumple under the flame.

"It's working!" Megan cried out excitedly.

Dean was starting to feel a bit dizzy. Of course, this could be attributed to all the blood loss, not to mention the fact that he was still sure he had broken some bone somewhere and was bleeding internally. He really ought to see some sort of doctor-person about that. . . Sam was looking kind of unsteady. . . fuzzy too.

He barely had time to see the kid collapse before he fell to his knees and then landed face first in the dirt.

~tbc~

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**A/N**: On a side note, we have a long list of dead people we'd like to see salted and burned. We believe it starts with Sir Isaac Newton and ends with Charles Darwin. Anyone in first year physics and biology might agree.


	11. Epilogue: And Really Bad Eggs

**Disclaimer**: We do not own Supernatural.

**A/N**: This bit is so short you're all probably wondering why we didn't just tack it on to the end of last chapter. Well, the reason for that is. . . we don't actually have a good reason. Or any reason. There is no reason here, no sir. It has taken leave of us along with our senses and gone on a permanent vacation in the Himalayas where it will not return our calls.

In any case, thanks for sticking with us so far. We hope you enjoyed our unreasonable little story.

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**Epilogue**: _And Really Bad Eggs_

Consciousness returned slowly, bringing with it a throbbing pain. It took a great deal of effort to pry his eyes open. Outside was. . . bright. Too bright. Where the hell was he? This was not a bathroom. Hadn't he been just about to take a shower? Instead he was lying on some sort of strange wet carpet that smelled like dirt and grass.

He sat up, feeling the pain instantly. Hell, had he been in some kind of fight? What had he been drinking last night?

"Dean? Dean, are you alright?" a man's voice asked. He knew that voice from somewhere, didn't he? He looked up and frowned as he took in the sight of the man.

"What are you doing here?"

The man looked apprehensive. "Dean, don't you remember what happened? Do you remember anything?"

Dean groaned and rubbed his head. It suddenly occurred to him that he didn't remember. "Nope, not a clue," he responded.

Bobby sighed heavily. Behind him there was a teenage girl and woman who looked like her mother. They seemed concerned.

A thought struck Dean with a sudden jolt. "Where's Sam?" he demanded.

"You remember Sam?" Bobby asked, surprised.

"The hell? Of course I remember Sam!" Dean said, struggling to get to his feet. Damn, what exactly had he been wrestling with? He caught sight of his brother a few feet away, sprawled across the ground and unconscious. Not far from him a fire was slowly dwindling away into a pile of smoke and ashes.

"Sammy!" Dean called, making his way over. Sam's face scrunched up and his eyes blinked open.

"God," he muttered, sitting up stiffly and taking in his surroundings, "Where the hell are we, Dean?"

"You remember Dean?" Bobby asked Sam insistently. He was sure acting funny, Dean thought.

"Yeah," Sam said slowly, staring at Bobby as if he'd lost his mind, "Of course I do – he's my brother."

"You remember that he's your brother?" Bobby was grinning now. "That's great news."

"Are you feeling okay, Bobby?" Dean asked.

"You remember me!" Bobby exclaimed, his grin growing wider. He then frowned at Dean, "I thought you said you didn't remember a thing."

"About what happened!" Dean said, "I never said I didn't remember you or Sam. Geez."

"Ah." Bobby nodded, not that this explained much to either of the brothers. "So I take it you don't remember about the witch or the demon then?"

"There was a demon?" Sam asked, eyes widening.

Bobby nodded again, and then his face suddenly hardened. "What's your father's name?" he asked sharply.

Sam and Dean stared at each other, equally puzzled by the sudden bizarre change of subject. "John Winchester," they answered simultaneously.

Bobby seemed a bit relieved, but he didn't relent. "How do you kill a werewolf?"

"Silver bullet to the heart," Dean said automatically, "What's with the pop quiz?"

"Just making sure you boys are still you boys," Bobby said, cracking a smile. "No brain damage or anything. No more than usual, anyway."

The girl broke away from her mother and approached them cautiously. "So they're better?" she asked anxiously, "They got their memories back?"

"Our memories?" Dean echoed, confused.

"We lost our memories?" Sam wondered aloud.

Bobby sighed some more. "Long story," he told them. To the girl he said, "I think they'll be just fine. You'd best go take care of your parents – and stay away from that black magic."

The girl nodded fervently, thanking them again, and hurried back to join her mother.

"Wait, she's the witch?" Sam said, looking terribly confused.

"Are we still in Springfield?" Dean asked. He'd been wanting to crack a couple of Simpson's jokes while they were there. . .

"Like I said, long story," Bobby told them, "I don't even think I know the half of it. I'll explain as much as I can once we get back to your motel."

Dean shrugged, and he and Sam lead the way round to the front of the house. Once they got there, Dean stopped dead in the front of the lawn.

"No way!" he moaned.

"What is it?" Sam asked, tensed. Bobby looked concerned.

Dean gestured at the large dent that had definitely not been on his baby last he checked. "My car!" he wailed.

All concern faded off Bobby's features, and Sam instantly relaxed. They both brushed by him without any sympathy whatsoever.

Assholes. He'd get them back someday. Or at the very least he'd get Sam. Dean smirked to himself as he climbed into the car, already planning the foundations of his next great prank against Sam.

For some reason the nickname Fruitcake sprang instantly to mind.

~la fin~

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End file.
